Violence Against Women! It’s Our Issue

Several
years ago, I saw a social media status update from a girl complaining about some
loud noises that was preventing her from sleeping. Curious I asked what the problem
was, she informed me that her neighbors were making noise again.

Again? This
meant that this happened often, so I pressed further… that’s when I found out
that the noise…the loud noise keeping her from sleeping… disturbing her at
night was the sound of her neighbor’s husband beating his wife! I was shocked…me
a JJC just coming to Nigeria…I was like why don’t you call the police or report
the case and the answer she gave me was quite startling “wetin concern me” aka
“it’s none of my business.”

It’s never been
anyone’s business, cause we feel like it cannot happen to us or to our sisters
or parents. Or maybe we are too pre-occupied with battling our own worries so
we ignore the abuse. And tick it down as “noise.” Just another daily I mean nightly
husband beating his wife silly. But sometimes the ordinary beating takes a
different turn. You see after years of telling the abused spouse to go back to their
other half, after years of silence by a community, by family, by you and me…the
perpetrator gets arrogant, gets confident, and then goes all Mercy Nnadi on
their spouse.

Don’t know
Mercy Nnadi…well her husband after repeated abuse and beatings, finally snapped
one day and used a hot iron to burn her chest and a screw driver to take the burnt
skin off only to re-apply the iron again.

She
survived, but her son did not.

He died…

Does it
make you mad?

Does it
make you upset?

Does it
piss you off?

I am sure
it does, you probably even want to ensure that her husband gets to die not by
electrocution or hanging but by a hot iron pressed all over his body (idea credited
to Ofili’s evil side). But we know where that takes us…

nowhere… just
more violence. So what can we do?

Last year a
friend of mine Ngozi Ilondu (my unofficial stalker) got hired to Project Alert,
an organization that helps battle against domestic violence.

Since she
joined she has shared numerous horror stories about violence against women that
occur in Nigeria.

But the
violence is not the sickening part, the sickening part is the silence from the community,
not just a passive silence…but an active push by local authorities and community
to silence the voices of the abused. All for the sake of preserving family and
community pride!

So it is no
surprise that project alert faces more opposition than they get help. But yet
they keep battling to get voices heard but they cannot do it alone. They need
you and me.

Ngozi
stalks me every day with email requests, from article edits of articles, mailing
of sponsorship forms and others. So I thought what if she could also stalk the ofilispeaks.com
readers… Mercy Nnadi has also joined them because she understands the devastation
of domestic violence, but we don’t need to see another person go through it
before we help support. They need help from graphic designers, to bloggers
willing to spread the word about what they are doing and they also needs funds.
So here’s how you can help:

3. Can’t
make a donation, then tweet/facebook/instagram this article and help spread the
word for the organization.

4. Lastly,
I will personally match any donation made (up to N75,000 ($500)) this weekend.

Now, all
the above we make a difference. But the lasting difference is by us changing
the conversation. So when we talk to people, we let them know that it is not
about not marrying Muslim or Igbo or Yoruba, but rather about marrying someone
who loves you, who will take care of you, who will respect you.

By spreading
this message and channeling our anger into something meaningful then maybe,
just maybe we can change the conversation and save a life.